State of Indiana: Creationism is not science! Please Help

I've posted this to the Indiana Atheists group. But in case there are people here who know of anyone living in Indiana who supports science whether they are non-religious or religious I'm posting this here:

On January 31, 2012, the Indiana Senate voted 28-22 in favor of Senate Bill 89 which would allow the teaching of creationism in public schools. The bill now proceeds to the Indiana House of Representatives.

In the 1987 case Edwards v. Aguillard the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that teaching creationism along with evolution in public schools was unconstitutional. Creationism is religious not science. Many public school boards have been sued for teaching creationism or intelligent design as science and lost. Costing public schools time and money that our public schools can ill afford to squander.

That's why I created a petition to The Indiana State House, The Indiana State Senate, and Governor Mitch Daniels, which says:

Replies to This Discussion

I am sick to death of these people attempting to push this crap into public schools, especially when Kitzmiller v. Dover should have settled this mess seven years ago. What this situation really wants is some very serious public attention in the Hoosier State. I hope it can get it.

fear not Louis, help is on the way. the ACLU and the various Education groups are already in action. they've been here before, and it has seemed inevitable that this bill would pass.

i heard that they changed the language last minute to allow for the teaching of all forms of creation stories, but again, not requiring teachers to do so. this is a good bit of trickery. it may sound fair to pea brained Indiana senators, but the creators of the bill did this knowing full well that school teachers would not teach ancient creation, muslim creation, etc.

this will pass the house, then another Dover media clusterfuck will ensue. good times await.

To all who oppose creationism. Closed minds are just that closed. Hicksville is beleiving in one theroy and evrything else is lame. Science is proven to be un proven. Please don't dum your selves down by showing your ignorance through calling others idiots or hicks, you are just proving the theory that "stupid is as stupid does".

should i be fair and assume that this commentor was using an iPhone or something? i will not. let's break it down "dum" sentence by "dum" sentence:

1. to all those who oppose creationism. - should have ended that sentence with a colon.

2. closed minds are just that closed. - should have been a hypen after 'that'

3. Hicksville is beleiving in one theroy and evrything else is lame. - mispellings of 'believing', 'theory', and 'everything'.

4. Please don't dum your selves down by showing your ignorance through calling others idiots or hicks, you are just proving the theory that "stupid is as stupid does". - mispelling of 'dum'. yourselves should be one word. run on sentence (comma should be replaced by a period). taking philosophy from Forrest Gump.

i can see where this poster is coming from. clearly he/she doesn't want kids growing up to be smarter than his/herself.

That's so dumb I feel stupider (see?) for having read it. It's almost as if the author of this quote thought they knew something or likely saw something about science and misunderstood it. Science is an entire process of disproving things. That doesn't mean it never accomplishes its goal. Once science gets it right we call it a theory. I think science needs a new word for theory.

I know we atheists are independent-minded and it's difficult to get many of us to agree on any given topic. But in my mind, it seems obvious that purposely misinforming students into thinking that "creationism theory" should be taught alongside evolutionary theory is a bad idea for so many reasons. (If an idea can be a "theory" even sans any scientific basis, then one is opened up to believe any kind of nonsense.)

Given that, can anyone help me understand why a poster in the "Indiana Atheist" group posted this?:

"What kind of pansy ass bitch is so afraid of opposing ideas that they want to ban the teaching of them? If you think atheism is so weak that it cannot stand up to some stupid fundies pushing creationism, YOU are the one showing serious doubts about the validity of atheism."

(See the "Indiana Atheists" link in the OP.)

I've been engaging in a debate in that group with this poster, but I'm simply at a loss as to why an atheist could have these opinions. (This seemed like a topic on which most of us might agree.)

It's not that I'm "afraid of opposing ideas". It's that I'm disturbed that people want our schools to purposely misinform students. It has nothing to do with religion. I'd feel the same way if they were trying to pass a law to teach students the "stork theory" alongside the biological facts. We may disprove the "big bang theory" one day and it's okay to tell students we're not sure. But the idea that the earth is only 8 to 10 thousand years old is as ridiculous as the stork theory and has no place in our schools.